What Will Happen With Our Social Security And Medicare Programs

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/03/26/0326socsec.html

While everyone is currently focusing on the election and the war going on, not many people think about the problems will we will soon have to face in the near future. Perhaps it is not us that will have to face it, but it may be our children or children’s children that have to suffer this burden. What I am talking about is about our Social Security and also our Medicare programs.

The source of our problem dates back to after World War II during the time of the baby boomers. Nearly 80 millions babies were born between 1945 and 1964. The first wave of these baby boomers started to receive these benefits this year. Due to this occurrence, Social Security and Medicare will be unable to pay off any benefits beginning in 2019 and 2041 respectively.

President Bush turned our $5.6 trillion surplus that he inherited from former President Bill Clinton into a $3 trillion deficit, which made it even more difficult for future policy makers to strengthen the two programs. The problem also arises when President Bush wants to pursue tax cuts and also guarantee Social Security and Medicare to all Americans.

Sometime this year, Medicare will use all of the money that it receives through payroll taxes and will start to take out of the accumulated reserves. In about three years, that same thing will happen to Social Security. But due to the accumulated funds, both programs can still fully paying benefits for many more years. With this in mind, we have to change the way we are currently budgeting our expenses.